Miami Heat

Journal Entry, July 31st, 1994. Miami, Florida.

"Listen. Plenty of people think old ladies move to Miami because of the heat. They love to think old women say things like, 'The cold hurts my bones,' and they imagine us packing up our things and flying down to the city of flamingo pink, jungle green and neon lights, and maybe it's partially true. But a hard winter is a hard winter no matter what age you are, and it certainly wasn't the reason my daughter and I made the decision to move there.

No, I was running from a cold of a different kind. A kind of cold I thought the heat would soothe but never could. I thought the smell of salt, breezy days and humidity that made my perm a chaotic, surreal force would heal me. But there are certain kinds of cold that can't be touched by any temperature.

That, my friends, is the kind of cold that old ladies want to quench, is the reason old people move to Miami. The worst part is finding out the beautiful sunsets don't do a damn thing to light up the dark in certain places.

****

Sal and I were young when we got married. In America, you might say we'd just fallen off the turnip truck. In Sicily, the phrase was a little more literal but it meant the same thing. We loved it, oh, we loved Sicily. It was our home, our country, in our blood. But when Dorothy came along, a little screaming bundle of need, we knew we had to seek fairer fortunes elsewhere and moved to New York.

I will never—never—forget the way the Statue of Liberty once. I met someone from America once, a school teacher no less, who confided in me they believed the Statue of Liberty was white their entire life, until they visited New York as an adult, and realized it's green. I thought, 'how could you live in this country, with such a huge, I mean enormous, symbol of freedom, of justice, of refuge, and not even know what color it is?' But I guess that's really what America is about. True freedom gives you the opportunity to not pay attention to anything.

Our apartment was tiny, though a real estate agent would probably call it "cozy" or "snug" today. It didn't have many windows but still it shone bright even in those terribly cold winters, filled with our glowing little family, two girls and one boy. Phil was always a little off, and I knew he was gay the moment I caught him standing in our bedroom, with my chunky black heels on, but I didn't love him any less. The world was harder for him in those days but not in our house, never.

New York is a place of many things. It is dirty, it is clean, it is cramped, it is green, it is land-locked, it is on a beach, it is humid, it is bone-chillingly cold.

In 1978, New York took my husband away. My Sal. Sally. The father of my children, the man who learned a new language with me in a foreign country, the man I shared a language with nobody else could ever know.

It took him from me in the middle of winter. He wasn't old enough to die, but he did anyways. Cancer. It's a vicious animal. I hate cancer. When I die I want it to be anything, no matter how painful, except cancer. Let me get run over by a car because I'm too slow and rickety to make it across the crosswalk in time, but don't let it be cancer.

It was snowing the day he died. I don't think I've ever seen a room look so gray, or a man so frail. The moment he closed his eyes forever, an empty place opened up in my gut no amount of salami could ever fill. Salami was his favorite. I can barely stand the sight of it now, the marbled pink color and the strong stench of former animation. Bologna is a much better alternative, soft and squishy and bigger.

A few years later, Dorothy said she couldn't stand the city any more. She wanted to be a school teacher, lead the next generation into the future, she said. Do something worth something. She said she wanted greener pastures, and I couldn't blame her. She loved her father and everything in New York looked just like him, smelled like him, had has name on it. We settled on Miami and left before we were sure where we'd live. We didn't even bother to book a hotel room. Phil cried and said Dorothy was selfish for 'whisking me away,' that I was going to a retirement community bigger than any in the country, that I couldn't be one of those old women who go to Florida. That it was too hot. I said I hoped it was.

Of all things, we saw a women putting up a flyer, needing roommates, in a supermarket full of perfectly stacked, triangular mounds of produce. In all colors. You can grow anything in Miami nearly all year round. Everything seems to always be in season. You could grow tomatoes in December if you really wanted to. The music is in store was soft 80s jazz, maybe [80s jazz saxophonist, Kenny? ....], at least that's how I remember it. But it goes without saying old folks have memory issues, so maybe it wasn't. But it seemed drab.

It was drab, gray tile, but in walked this woman dressed in electric pink, a pants suit-type get up with a v-neck nearly down to her navel. I knew immediately she was the kind of woman who rarely heard the word, 'no.' But she tacked a flyer to the community board and Dorothy saw her. Dorothy was standing close by, weighing the attributes of each cantaloupe in a bin. She held one in each hand and looked like she was a scale. Lady Justice.

When she glanced over and saw the headline on the flyer, 'ROOMATES NEEDED,' she struck up a conversation with the woman. I guess she'd never heard no, but she'd certainly heard the words, 'I'm sorry ma'am,' in just the same way I had, and Blanche would kill me if I told you this, but she got a little teary in the produce section. I think Dorothy thought she needed us more than we needed her.

*****

When we moved in, we got the boy next door to help carry our bags, but we didn't have any furniture to move in, and it was a good thing. Blanche's bedrooms were mostly all furnished, so we wouldn't have had any room anyways. The other roommate, Rose, had moved in previously but we didn't meet her until the next day. She'd brought a cheesecake home from the store, a habit we would never be able to break and trotted out on the kitchen table at least three nights a week. Hey, there are worse addictions. Believe me, in Miami, I would know.

****

There is something strong in women. Something warm. Something hard. Rose had lost her husband, just like me, just like Blanche. I would say Dorothy had lost her husband too, in a different way, but she never really had that schmuck Stan to begin with. I was glad when it was over.

Yes, there are times when a house full of women is a circus. Especially when one of them consistently brings home strange men at two in the morning. But the truth is that a group of women can weather anything. A good friend can pull you through the darkest of times. And it was in that house that the sick, cold feeling in my stomach began to loosen up. I was able to breathe again.

Miami is just like New York in that it is a city of many things. Neon lights, too many one-piece bathing suits worn in public places that aren't the beach, and too many people on roller skates. Imagine trying to carry a bag down the street when people are actually zooming by with roller skates on and not much else. It can be overwhelming.

But mostly, Miami, for me anyways, is a warm place. A hot place. A bright place. And I'm not talking the sun, or the climate, or the weather. I'm talking about the women who changed my life, including my daughter. I'm talking about the kind of warmth that only comes from companionship and love, the real kind. The real kind of healing, and the real kind of friendship. Something deep and strong and comforting, like a warm ocean current.

Maybe people are right when they crack jokes about old people moving to Florida to get away from the cold. But they have no idea just what kind of cold they're really talking about."

-Sofia, just before she passed away in Miami, 1994